s/t

Description

As hard as it is to imagine, there was a time when the Sun City Girls did not exist. Before the Bishop brothers teamed up with drummer and shaman Charlie Gocher to form the classic SCG trio, there were various improvised groups of freaks and weirdos from the Phoenix area — groups that existed only for the duration of a concert, an open mic night, or a party before dissolving without a trace. It was from this milieu that Paris 1942 was born, a short-lived group formed by guitarist Jesse Srogoncik and including Alan Bishop, Richard Bishop, and former Velvet Underground drummer Maureen Tucker. Paris 1942 only played four concerts in as many months, but between April and August 1982, the group gathered several times a week in Tucker's living room, where they composed and rehearsed with daily discipline. Although P42 released nothing during its brief existence, an EP and a 7" LP (both self-titled) quietly appeared on the Majora label in the mid-to-late 1990s. Until now, these two releases, along with an appearance on the Placebo Amuck compilation in late 1982, were the only documented evidence of this improbable, fortuitous, and magnificent group's existence. If those who expected P42's music to sound like a bewitching blend of the Sun City Girls' iconoclastic chaos and the Velvets' primitive drone will certainly not be disappointed, Paris 1942 mostly transcends these nearly impossible expectations. Srogoncik's songs, in particular, are a revelation, sharing as much common ground with the ribald exuberance of the Gun Club and the chapbook punk of Peter Laughner as with the more obvious reference points. The group's foresight in documenting and immortalizing this musical encounter — an encounter as improbable as it was fleeting — establishes a missing link between the Velvets and the Voidoids, between the Dead Boys and the Dead C, between ESP-Disk' and DNA. Far more than a historical curiosity, Paris 1942 offers a fresh look at an embryonic and sadly vanishing American underground. This is music that questions the past and anticipates a thousand possible futures. — James Toth (excerpt from the liner notes)